Tempted by Demons: A Reverse Harem Paranormal (Brides of the Sinistral Realms)

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “No,” Dante said. “There’s not. You’re sounding desperate and you’re just going to scare her.”

  “Let me try it,” I said. “We have nothing to lose.”

  For the first time in my life here in the Fixed Plane, I was going to at least hint at the truth.

  Chapter Five

  Edie

  Oh. My. God.

  I was losing my mind.

  Seriously, I just paced the large room for a little while, holding my dead-as-a-doornail phone, occasionally checking to make sure it was really dead.

  I couldn’t remember that I’d ever been cut off from Nicole since the day we met. I needed to talk to her about what was going on here. I needed to text sooo badly. Like, please, if I could just text…

  Two weeks seemed like so long to abandon my virtual self. I imagined her as a separate person, flailing around in cyberspace, lonely and lost. Give me something to do, Edie… I’m dying, Edie… You post, therefore I am…

  “No!” I said aloud. “I can do this! I can do this…”

  I shoved the phone into a drawer and took out the lone paperback I brought with me. I ran a hot bath. I cranked open the old window to fresh, sea-scented air and opened the book. I forced myself to take a moment to enjoy my surroundings. I was reading a vintage Agatha Christine paperback that I had chosen mostly for its retro charm although I had also heard that Agatha Christie books were worth reading. There was a bar of soap wrapped in purple paper with some French writing on it…so pretty against the gleaming white tub and tile and the silver fixtures… if only I could snap a photo. #frenchsoap #bath #pampering #amreading #agathachristie #mystery #bibliophile #treatyoself

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. No. No, no, no. I had to just open the book and read it and enjoy the warm water and the cool breeze.

  I looked at the pages and realized it had actually been a long time since I sat down and read a book. Like, really read one. Not just skimming through a paranormal romance on my phone during my lunch break. I read a lot as a kid. I remembered flopping onto my stomach on the bed with a stack of library books. Now I wondered how I did it. How do you…like…focus?

  I gave up on the book and just shut my eyes and tipped my head back against the rim of the tub.

  “You really are a mess,” I told myself. “But here you are.”

  Maybe, I thought, I needed a list of goals: Things to Do Before the Ferry Gets Here. Yes. Lists made everything more manageable. I ran out of the bath and grabbed some paper and a pencil from my room, then jumped back in and scribbled it out on the wooden table that held the towels.

  1. Read at least two books all the way though.

  2. Walk down the entire length of the island.

  3. Allow yourself to sleep in because there is no one to judge.

  4. Go blueberry picking.

  5. Dress up for dinner if you want because this house is glamorous, but don’t stress about it during the day. (Remember what Dakota says: BOYS DON’T CARE.)

  6. Enjoy nature every day without taking pictures of it.

  `7. Ask Alister to give you the house tour.

  8. Ask Van if you can go lobster fishing with him. And eat the delicious lobster like cruel humanity has done throughout time!!

  9. Take cooking lessons with Dante even if he is a pain in the ass.

  10. Sleep with

  Which one? I would have to decide. I mean, Alister was definitely like, the one with the dreamy, Victorian-appropriate manners and the stylish wardrobe. The gentleman. I could see the dancing, the historical house tour, all the courtship leading up to an amazing night. Then there was Van, who probably had the best body and also that “man of the wilds” thing that really got to me. And if he took me lobster fishing we would be all alone on that boat… Dante would be the most difficult to pin down, but oh damn, who didn’t love taming a bad boy? …and I had to see the rest of his ink.

  Ugh. Deciding was impossible.

  I had never been confronted with such a scenario. I was usually Miss Monogamous. But in this case, I was dreaming of all of them equally. And damn, those dreams were already getting dirty.

  I quickly scribbled,

  10. Sleep with ALL OF THEM like a BOSS.

  I snorted. It seemed very far fetched. Still, this was a fantasy list.

  If this vacation was about me taking charge of my life and deciding what I really wanted, well—what would be better than sleeping with not one but three hot guys? Even one of them would be awesome, but I might as well try for three and if it turned into a big tangled emotional mess, it wasn’t like they were going to track me down later. Dante had the hippest vibe of them all and he still seemed to think that the entire internet was summed up by “Google”, which made me think he barely knew what Google actually was.

  I folded up the paper and put it away with my credit cards and ID and stuff—definitely safer than the trash they would probably take out—and started working on dressing up for dinner. I had expected a glamorous lounge/ballroom with a bunch of other guests and a pianist and wine and all of that, so I had packed every sexy-yet-sophisticated thing I owned. I wriggled into a classic black cocktail dress while wishing I had one of my girls to handle the zipper, twisted my somewhat wind-blown hair up into a bun, and applied some low-key makeup.

  I had a brief flailing moment of insecurity when I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was still kind of a mess and it was so easy to start noticing every little flaw. But there wasn’t much I could do for my hair under these circumstances (so much for the curling iron I brought) and nothing was sexier than confidence. I just had to try and tap into that, live in the moment and stuff.

  You can do this.

  I came downstairs, the smell of something rich and comforting hitting my nose. The stairs creaked under my kitten heels. Alister was sitting in one of the sofas with a book, but as soon as he saw me, he put it down on a small table beside him. I heard the sounds of boiling and banging in the distance.

  Alister stood up. “Edie. You look—stunning.”

  “Oh.” I blinked, unused to this sort of reaction. I don’t know if a guy had ever told me I looked ‘stunning’. “You’re quite the gentleman, aren’t you?”

  “I do try. Dinner will be ready soon, but…”

  “Is there time for a quick house tour? I’m feeling refreshed.”

  He smiled. There was something about his smile—like it meant way more than a smile. I couldn’t pinpoint it. I felt like I’d known him in another lifetime, and he was waiting for me. “Of course. I’ve been wanting to show you the library, but maybe you don’t read much, it occurs to me.”

  “I love to read. I had to love reading, I was smack dab in the thick of the Harry Potter generation.”

  “I haven’t gotten around to them yet.”

  “You’re…a little older than me?” I ventured.

  “I’m twenty-nine,” he said.

  “Oh! We’re the same age.”

  “But we didn’t get Harry Potter mania here at Marchcliff Manor…” He smiled wryly.

  “So you grew up here?”

  “Actually, somewhere even more remote than this. But we used to come here every summer.”

  “What could be more remote than this? The Amazon?”

  “A forest…near here.” That could hardly be more vague. He gave me a strange, penetrating look for a minute that made me almost afraid to ask.

  “Well…they’re good,” I said, scrambling to get back on more comfortable footing. “I’m a little more of a supernatural, horror, mystery girl. I brought a paperback with me. Agatha Christie.” No need to mention my total failure at actually reading it, or that I bought it because I thought it would be good posed on Instagram. “Still gotta love the classics.”

  “Yes. Have you read Dorothy Sayers?”

  “No…”

  “Well, if you run out of material, she was a favorite of my mother’s. Our library is, admittedly, dated, so I’m glad you do appreciate the classics.” He opened
a set of double doors. The doors were framed by carvings of classical-looking ladies’ heads, snakes and apples. Nothing like a little Adam-and-Eve metaphor for the library, but it heightened my sense that there was something special about this room.

  The library was such a many-sided room that it was almost round. On one side, eight very tall windows looked out over the rocks to the ocean. The rest of the walls had shelves wrapping fully around, even over the door. The ceilings were about sixteen feet high and the shelves reached all the way to the top, with one of those ladders that mounted onto the shelves. The smell of old books hit my nose instantly. In the center of the room were leather chairs and reading tables and a globe. It was everything an antique library should be.

  “I need to take a pic—“ I cut off. I swear, it was just too automatic. I didn’t even have pockets right now and I had still tried to grab my own ass.

  “Still reaching for the phone?”

  “Mmmaybe.”

  “Just think, in the 1870s, a library of this size must have seemed like it held all the knowledge in the world.”

  “Yeah, it’s just not the 1870s anymore. But I guess you might as well romanticize the 1870s if you’re stuck in them. Why are you here, anyway? Did you inherit this place or something?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s it. A matter of family pride, shall we say…”

  “You and Van and Dante are…brothers? Cousins?”

  “Childhood friends, actually.”

  “Oh, wow. Living out here with childhood friends but no girls? That must be rough.”

  He had no problem taking that hint, taking a step closer to me. “Very.”

  I looked at his mouth. It was a very attractive mouth, with a little dent in his chin that somehow seemed charmingly snobbish. He was giving me serious hot British actor vibes. The accent wasn’t quite there, but it was close.

  Before I could think about it, anyway, he said, “We come from a rather strict community with certain rules for the woman we can marry.”

  “Religious?”

  “No… You won’t have heard of it. We limit our usage of electricity and stay close to the land.”

  “Like the Amish?”

  “Not in the least.” He idly gave the globe a spin. “I don’t usually tell our guests this much background information. They find it romantic, like we’re lost in time here on this island, and they ask a lot of questions, but I think they leave feeling sorry for us. I can’t stand for anyone to think that. This place is special. There is a strong energy here that will get into your bones if you let it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. It does cause some problems with courtship, needless to say.”

  My heart started beating a little faster as he spoke. “I know just what you mean, actually. I felt it when the island appeared out of the clouds. Like it’s not even…part of the real world at all.”

  “Exactly…” His fingers lightly brushed my arm, directing me to turn around. “Dante thinks you’re like all the other guests, but I’m not so sure.”

  “And how do I know you don’t tell all the guests this same spiel?” He was certainly good at making me feel special.

  He laughed. “Well, you don’t. But it’s true.” He motioned at a glass cabinet built into the other shelves. It was strange because I could have sworn there was no glass there a minute ago. “You can read any book in this library except for those.”

  “Why can’t I read those?”

  “They hold the secrets of our order.”

  “If you told me, would you have to kill me?”

  “Oh, no. I would be punished, that’s all.”

  Well, this was getting into some weird shit. That was probably my cue to take a big step back. On the other hand, why was he telling me this? I sensed some deep yearning in him, a hunger barely restrained by his mannered charm. Maybe he was trapped in a cult and he wanted me to tell the authorities back on the mainland.

  It felt like…something more, though. It actually felt like I was living inside of one of the supernatural stories I’d always loved so much, where every corner was full of mystery, but it was more intriguing than scary. I still felt as if I could imagine him pinning me down, thrusting his tongue in my mouth, throwing up my skirts…

  He gave me a sidelong glance that made me feel like he could read my mind. Maybe that was just life as a hot person. Maybe you just knew everyone was thinking of having sex with you. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile that made it even worse.

  A loud clock with low chimes that resonated through the walls made me practically leap into his arms with terror.

  “Just the old grandfather clock,” he said.

  I drew back, blushing, trying not to think about the fact I had just grabbed his arm and he was even more solid under his jacket than I would have guessed. “Sorry about that…”

  “It’s my fault, I’ve been telling you these stories,” he said. “But that means dinner will be ready. Dante has the timing down to a science.” Before we left, he paused and plucked a book off the shelf. Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison.

  Well, I guess I should be glad he hadn’t suggested Lovecraft.

  Chapter Six

  Dante

  Edie came into the dining room right on time, looking sexy as sin in a black dress that clung to all her curves and showed off long legs. Maybe I was glad that I wasn’t living in the Victorian era after all. I definitely appreciated some nice legs. Alister pulled out a seat for her, and she thanked him with a smile as she did that I-know-I’m-hot way of sitting down girls have where they really point their ass at the chair and then smooth the back of their skirt. She did that and then her fingers brushed over her hair, finding a stray strand and tucking it back. I wished she’d just worn her hair down. I could just imagine sweeping that blonde mane back from her shoulders.

  I could see Alister and Van checking her out with the same admiration.

  This was a fucking miracle. We were all into her.

  Obviously, at this point we had tried to adopt a “we’ll take what we can get” attitude. Alister cast his divination spell, and whatever girl it lured in, we tried out best to woo. But often, at least one of us just wasn’t feeling it and of course, girls could always tell. You couldn’t force connections, no matter how much you needed a bride.

  But just because we liked Edie didn’t mean she would have any serious interest in marrying three demons. I think plenty of girls were up for a rendezvous, but a commitment? A commitment to all of us and this island? That was something else.

  Calm down and don’t get any ideas. She’ll be a memory in two weeks.

  I still couldn’t stop looking at her as I set the table with steak in a mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes and salad. A classic crowd pleaser meal for her first day. The piece de resistance, the blueberry cake, was still in the kitchen.

  “Ooh.” Her eyes widened. “This looks amazing. Where do the ingredients come from? You must really have to plan ahead.”

  It was amazing how few people ever wondered where the food came from. I couldn’t recall that anyone had asked about kitchen logistics on their very first day. “You’re right,” I said. “I do plan ahead, but we also grow a lot of it here. The mushrooms and potatoes are from the island.”

  “Is it hard to grow things here? It seems like a harsh environment.”

  “It is,” Van said, “but I have two green thumbs and eight green fingers.”

  “And you’re so modest, too,” Alister said. Van’s sense of humor, if you could call it that, pained Alister. He put on some classical music in the background before sitting down, to fill any awkward pauses. We had a lot of awkward pauses with our guests, to be honest.

  How could we avoid it? We came from another world. It might have connections to this one, but we had never been able to live what a girl like Edie would consider a normal life. Electricity was toxic to magical beings and we could only handle it in moderate doses if we got into a relationship with a human. Our family had long relied on the Parker family
to bring us books and newspapers so we could keep up. But now that was hardly possible. I was tired of reading magazines trying to piece together what the hell it all meant…not to mention the slang. One girl who showed up threw around words like ‘normcore’ and ‘bitcoin’ that were not in any of our dusty dictionaries and I felt like a fucking idiot the entire time.

  Still, Alister and Van didn’t have it so bad because they didn’t seem to care as much if they were stuck in place. Water demons and nature demons tended to be content wherever they were, as long as they had access to their element. Fire demons were always restless. I hated not knowing what I was talking about and not being able to see things I read about. The only thing that would save me was a bride, but it was hard to woo a girl when you couldn’t speak her language, and you couldn’t even explain why you seemed like such a clueless outsider.

  Edie was right. We hardly could expect to have many guests under these conditions.

  But I hated her for pointing that out.

  When the conversation paused, I actually saw her look at the table like she was searching out the phone. She took a sip of wine. I could’ve sworn I saw her actually twitch. This girl was hopeless.

  I bet she wouldn’t miss the real world if she knew what I could do to her… I stared at her over my own wine glass, a silent challenge. As soon as she noticed, I saw a faint blush rise to her cheeks.

  “So, Edie, what brought you out here?” Van asked.

  “I just needed a break.” She cut a bite off her meat and swept it through the potatoes before putting it in her mouth. “That’s amazing. How do you get the mashed potatoes so rich?”

  “Lots of salt in the water, a ricer, a ton of butter and a smidge of cream cheese.”